My races have really started piling up and I’m having a
blast this summer! Although I’m no
stranger to running many summer races, this year I’m competing in a much larger
variety of events. Mixing the triathlons
with the running is helping me become more well-rounded with my training and I
find my run times continue to drop even as I increased the swimming and biking
and had to drop back mileage on my running.
I’ve got four more races to catch up on since my last post,
three runs and a triathlon. I actually
only have one more tri firmly set in my schedule which is this upcoming
weekend, after that time I will lace up my shoes and start cranking up the
miles in anticipation of my fall marathon.
I’m going to make my first attempt at a Boston qualifying in November and
I’m both nervous and excited for what is sure to be a challenging journey. My training plan is still pretty rough but I’m
going to base it off my plan for Grandma’s and make some small changes in
pacing and elevation.
Race Summary of July…
Run 4 Troops
– Dyersville to Dubuque, IA - Marathon Relay – June 28, 2014 (41:30, 6.6 miles)
We had an awesome time at the run for troops and our relay
team pulled in a second place finish!
That being said, I learned a pretty big lesson on the old ego… not every
race is going to be a PR. Although I’m
not too upset at my 6:17 average being I was only 6 days after Grandma’s
Marathon, I was a little frustrated with myself for taking the first mile out
at around a 5:40 pace. I was only 2
miles into the race when I started to crash hard, the legs were still feeling
the marathon miles and moreover my normally strong mental toughness was just
not there that day. Lucky for me the
first place marathoner came up by my side and gave me some words of encouragement
and pushed me to keep on. I instantly
felt better and my pace dropped about 30 seconds per mile as I ran with him
through the end of my leg, it really goes to show how much of this sport is
mental.
After my leg I had a blast watching all the rest of the crew
run, each of them did an amazing job. On
a relay you ride in a van with your team and drive point to point dropping off
and picking up runners; you would think this would lead to a logistics
nightmare but the race crew did a great job of leading everyone though. We had 2 teams for the DRC and my brother and
sister had a team as well so there was lots of fun cheering everybody in at the
finish. They had pizza at the finish which
hit the spot and I got to chat with the winners who did amazing considering the
heat of the day, it really was a ton of fun and a great cause.
Firecracker 5K
– Earlville, Ia – (17:53, 3.1 miles)
This was a great race and I was thrilled to come away with
the overall win... you see, I have had a
chip on my shoulder since I missed my first opportunity two years ago to
possibly bring in a win… let me explain.
In 2012 I drove out to Earlville only to realize I had signed up for the
“EarlHAM 5K” instead of “EarlVILLE”, a town about 200 miles away. Unfortunately I did not have any money to
register that day so I drove home disappointed, two days later I found out the
winning time was over 20 minutes and I could have won the race… pretty devastating
for me at the time as I had never even gotten close to winning a 5k… this bothered
me for a long time…
So fast forward two years and a lot of training later and I
was hell-bent on taking my win back. I normally
am not very nervous for 5ks but the pressure I put on myself for this race had
my nerves going pretty good. The last 20
minutes before the race start I was feeling like I could lose my breakfast
about any time… I always find the few minutes waiting to toe the line the most
nerve racking of times.
So once the gun goes off it was pretty much me and last year’s
winner battling it out from the start… he was a younger guy and took off very
quick from the start. I decided to use a
strategy I had not planned on before the race and pushed the pace throughout
the first mile down around the 5:30 mark to keep stride with him. Lucky for me around mile 1 he dropped back
and by the second mile I was all by myself.
These are very bittersweet moments as I am happy to be in first place
but wishing I had someone to push the pace and help me drop more time. I ended up well though with a 17:53, I got a
nice medal and a new cooler filled with Gatorade… yet all the sports drinks in
the world couldn’t taste as sweet as finally redeeming my win haha.
Ironman 70.3
– Racine, WI – (5:23:24, 70.3 mile triathlon)
So this was definitely the hardest physical challenge of my
life so far, the race consisted of a 1.2 mile swim in Lake Michigan followed by
a 56 mile bike ride and a half marathon (13.1 mile) run. The weather was awesome, decently cool for
mid July and not much wind which meant the water was like glass. I had heard horror stories about Lake
Michigan swell and sea sick racer vomiting all over length of the route… I was
more than happy this was not something we had to deal with. The temperature of the water however was a
factor, it had only gotten to the upper 50’s and was quite cold at first. To
combat the head freeze I wore a thermal race cap and also decided to wear my
sleeved wetsuit instead of my sleeveless one… this turned out to be a good
decision.
Once the race started the adrenaline kicked in and I did not
mind the water temps, in fact the swim went so well it was probably my favorite
part of the race. I never realized the water
in Lake Michigan is so clear but I could see right down to the bottom and
compared to my training swims in the murky Barrington Lakes, I felt much less claustrophobic
and was very relaxed… I comfortably ran onto the beach hitting a 34:40 swim
time.
The bike portion was my biggest worry… I have not had much
bike training, in fact I’ve barely rode over 200 miles total prior to the
race. On top of that I had only had 1
training ride over 15 miles per hour so I knew I would be in for a long afternoon. Again the race day adrenaline must have
really kicked in because I started off right around 18 miles per hour and
somehow managed to increase my pace throughout the 56 mile course and ended up
a little shy of 20mph.. this considering I had a small incident with my chain
getting stuck that tacked on a minute or two at the beginning. The only issue on the bike portion was on two
different bumps I lost a water bottle and about ½ the nutrition I packed… I
started supplementing with product on the course I had never used and this
turned out to be a bad decision as it gave me some stomach cramps towards the end. I finished the bike strong though and thrilled
to have it a 2:56:11.
Running was the last portion of the race and by the time I
hit the pavement it was up around 80 degrees temp and quite sunny. I felt great however and took out the first
mile around a 6:50 pace feeling strong.
The course was a double out and back so we went about 3 ½ miles out and
turned back.. then once close to the start we circled back again for anther
lap. The first lap in general I felt
great but the second I had some issues. I knew about 7-8 miles into my run that my
stomach wasn’t liking all the supplements I had taken from the course, I
started getting some pretty bad cramping. I tried to drink some water but my
stomach turned pretty quick.. the last
three miles were a struggle but I made it through and didn’t feel too bad about
hitting a 1:44 run time.
So my overall time for the race was a 5:23 which I was very
happy with, I had a goal time of hitting under 6 hours so I had beaten that by
quite a bit. I did however come out of
the race with many areas to challenge myself to get better at, mainly the
biking and nutrition. I’m excited to
train a little harder in those areas and come back next year to compete again!
The Bix – Davenport,
IA – (43:20, 7 mile)
The Bix was AWESOME!
I just love this race, over 20,000 people gather up in downtown
Davenport to run 7 miles of hills on a pretty grueling out and back
course. The best part for me is watching
the professionals battle it out for top spots, there are some of the best
runners around that show up for this one.
I had a pretty great race myself considering I was only 6 days out from Racine Tri, I actually PR’d the
course by 4:31 from last year’s time and came in 199th overall and
16th in my division. That and
I unknowingly got to battle it out with a two time Olympic gold medalist Joan
Benoit!... I just thought she was a really fast older lady and was a little
upset when she attempted to pass me on a downhill J Other
than my race the whole club did great, we had a large turnout of DRC members
and everyone did awesome… I really enjoy our out of town races as it us more
time to hang and chat about running and our race strategies...
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